"This book kind of sums up the whole deal really. Particularly nowadays. Someone should read it aloud over and over again while blaring it through huge mega-speakers throughout the Washington DC area. Reading this book to my daughters is about the happiest I get in life."

"Of course I was Becky Thatcher from age five to 10 and switched to Huckleberry at 13 because he had all the fun. And before I ever set foot in Heidelberg in the 1950s, Twain’s Tramp held my hand when our American twangs were ridiculed by speakers of that awful German language."

"This is the Keith Sweat album I like the most; you never get a second chance to make a first impression. The production of Teddy Riley… he was just the man. And Keith Sweat is a sexy name. It has a lot of character; it's like he was born to make this record. It was his birthright, just through that name alone. I was in the seventh grade I believe when it came out, and got it straight away. There's a song called 'Right and A Wrong Way' and it starts with these two chords, and then it just goes "BOOM"! Back then, we used to sit and doctor our speakers - I had these house speakers and I took the covers off and rewire them, trying to be technical. I'd lay the speaker down on its back, and I'd sprinkle powder in the woofer just for my own amusement. And then… BOOM! [mimes powder explosion]. That's why I remember that album."